Part 25 (1/2)
For he did not know, being a young man with great possessions, but few experiences, that Love does not come upon the wings of light and laughter, but wears a sable mantle, shot through with fires from heaven.
He had never loved, and so he did not know that, when the divine blessing of love is vouchsafed, there is a catch in the throat and the tears start into the eyes.
He talked well and brilliantly, relating his experiences of that afternoon.
”So you see,” he said, ”I went into my great lonely house by a side door--the butler's door, I believe it is called as a matter of fact, and I found the library very warm and comfortable, and with the man I had appointed to be librarian gone. He apparently had just finished his day's work of cataloguing. He is a scholar of my own college and a very decent chap I have found him. He wanted some paid work during the vacations to help him on towards his career at the bar--he is going to be called as soon as he possibly can. I understand that he is certain for a double first. Already he has got his first in mods. and he will get a first in history, too.”
”I know the man,” Lord Hayle said. ”Poor chap! He does not look too well provided with this world's goods.”
”But I thought every one at Paul's,” Lady Constance said, ”was well-to-do. Is it not quite the nicest college in Oxford?”
”Oh, yes, Connie,” Lord Hayle replied, ”but don't you see, there are some scholars.h.i.+ps upon the Foundation which make it possible for quite poor men to live at Paul's. They are very much out of it, naturally.
They cannot live with the other men, and so they form a little society of themselves. Still, it is a jolly good thing for them, I suppose,” he concluded rather vaguely, and with the young patrician's slight contempt for, and lack of interest in people, of the cla.s.s to which Arthur Burnside belonged.
”Well, I like the man well enough--what I have seen of him,” the duke continued. ”But I made an extraordinary discovery to-day. Upon the writing-table where he had been working was some ma.n.u.script. It was obviously the last chapter of a book, and, by Jove! it was a book of the rankest Socialism!”
”Socialism?” said the bishop. ”My dear Paddington get rid of the young man at once. Such people ought not to be encouraged!”
”Such people are very charming sometimes, bishop,” the duke replied.
”You know that I probably owe my life to the chief Socialist of them all--Fabian Rose.”
”Well, well,” the bishop replied, ”I suppose it would be unfair to deprive this young Mr. Burnside of his opportunity. At the same time, I must say it is extraordinary how these pernicious socialistic doctrines are getting abroad. Fabian Rose, and his friends, however personally charming and intellectual they may be--and, of course, I do not deny that some of them are very clever fellows--are doing an amount of harm to the country that is incalculable.”
”They are clever,” the duke returned, in a somewhat meditative voice; ”they are, indeed, clever. This ma.n.u.script that I read was certainly a brilliant piece of special pleading, and, as a matter of fact, I don't quite understand what the answer to it can be.”
”It does seem hard,” Lady Constance said with a little sigh, ”that we should have everything, and so many other people have nothing. After all, father, in the sight of G.o.d we are all equal, are we not?”
The bishop smiled. ”In the sight of G.o.d, my dear,” he answered, ”we are certainly all equal. The soul of one man is as precious as the soul of another. But in this world G.o.d has ordained that certain cla.s.ses should exist, and we must not presume to question His ordinance. Our Lord said: 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.'”
”But what I cannot see,” the duke broke in, ”is why, when wealth is produced by labour, the people who produce it should have no share in it. Don't think, Lord Camborne, that I am a Socialist, or infected in any way with socialistic doctrines.” He spoke more rashly than he knew.
”But I should like to know the economic answer to the things which Mr.
Rose, and Mr. Conrad, and their friends told me when I was ill.”
”The answer,” replied the bishop, ”is perfectly simple. It is intellect, and not labour, that is the creator of wealth. Let me give you a little example.”
As he spoke he placed his elbows upon the table, joined the tips of his fingers together, and looked at his young audience with a suave smile.
”Let me instance the case of a saw!”
”A saw, father?” Lady Constance said. ”What on earth has a saw to do with Socialism?”
”Listen,” the bishop replied, ”and I will tell you. If a saw had not been invented, planks, which are absolutely necessary for the construction of building, and, indeed, for almost all the conveniences of modern life, must be split up out of the trunks of trees by means of wedges, a most clumsy and wasteful method.
”Your labourer says that he produces wealth which the planks make. This, of course, is an absolute fallacy. Labour alone might rend the trunk of a tree into separate pieces, though, to be sure, it would be a difficult business enough. But only labour, working with tools, could split up the trunk of a tree with wedges, saw it with a saw, or cut it with a knife.
Don't you see, my dear Connie, labour makes the noise, but it is intellect which is responsible for the tune. Men move by labour, but they only move effectually and profitably by intellect. Labour is the wind, intellect the mill. Though there is as much wind blowing about now as there was three thousand years ago, some of it now grinds corn, saves time, and increases wealth. This difference is due, not to the wind, but to the wiser utilisation of the wind through intellect.
”And the same is true of labour. Without the inventions and the improvements of the few, labour would produce a bare subsistence for naked savages. It could not, however, produce wealth, because wealth is essentially something over and above a bare subsistence. A bare subsistence means consuming as fast as producing; and thus, all that labour does when not enabled to be efficient and profitable by the superior intelligence of the few.